Facebook has 1 billion users, it’s time to leave

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Facebook has reached a milestone of 1 billion users worldwide. Once exclusive to college students, it is now used by anyone willing to give the company a bit of personal information. After that’s done you can join the social network and connect with just about everyone you’ve ever met.

The social networking giant is not without its issues, however. As Facebook literally runs out of new users to recruit, it has us wondering — Is it set to be the next Myspace as frustrated users move onto the next big thing? There are some clear reasons why it’s time to go…

Facebook is a huge target

It is no secret that Facebook has a massive amount of data. Contact, financial, and personal information is stored on the company’s servers, and with 1 billion identities behind all that, it is a serious target to hackers. In the past, the service has had to contend with various scams, phishing schemes, and likely an inordinate amount of spam. As the service grows, it is likely that such tactics will only increase in addition to a resurgence of direct attacks as hackers attempt to get at user information stored in Facebook’s databases.

A Facebook data breach would essentially be the holy grail of hacks. The attackers would have access to sensitive personal information as well as a great deal of data to sift through in order to create more efficient password crackers based on patterns (one reason why randomly generated pass phrases from a password manager are a good idea).

Network effect gone wild

Along with the security aspects, the sheer amount of users and data flowing through the service has become overwhelming for many users. Despite the new Timeline profiles and beefed up filtering options in the news feed, friends are inundated with posts from status updates and application spam notifications. If you are in a group of friends, Facebook will even happily flood the home page with conversations between other people that do not even involve you, at least if you are not on top of your filtering efforts.

Basically, at some point, there is just too much data to sift through, and people will get burnt out by the service as Facebook becomes less fun and more like work (that you aren’t getting paid for, mind you). At least, personally, I’ve stopped using Facebook for anything besides PMs, and the only thing keeping me doing that much is that it is easier for my family to use Facebook messages and IMs than to use email. A quick scroll through my news feed quickly reminds me why I stopped regularly checking in.

Obligatory friending/liking/sharing

With 1 billion users, you are now able to connect to family, friends, and everyone at your school or within your organization. Myspace was the go-to place years ago, but was overtaken by Facebook as it represented thing that seemed more exclusive. Your parents and co-workers (as great as they are) were not on it yet, so you were able to be a bit more relaxed with conversations and opinion sharing. Now the cycle is repeating, as everyone in your life moves over to Facebook to connect with you. In that respect, Facebook has lost a lot of its initial appeal and luster.

Slower moving and more corporate

When Facebook was a younger service without shareholders to please, it seemed like a more flexible company. Facebook was able to try out new things, quickly roll out new features, and re-invent itself to innovate and keep users happy. Flexibility does not seem to be a trait of Facebook anymore, however. The company’s last big news was Timeline and then their purchase of up-and-coming photo sharing service Instagram… six months ago. Yes, Facebook seemingly figuring out a good formula for keeping — and monetizing — users is a good thing for (stock ticker symbol) FB but that doesn’t mean it’s the best for users.

And there is a good deal of competition out there with Google+, Twitter, and an overhauled Myspace that is attempting to woo users back with touch friendly UI (OK, maybe that’s a less serious threat, but at least they are trying new things). Granted, these services are not quite ready to take on Facebook, but they are innovating and it is only a matter of time before users start taking notice. Along the same lines was Diaspora, which ended up being a spectacular failure, but not before garnering a huge amount of attention.

Facebook is the social networking giant today, but it’s possible that it’s grown too large to sustain itself. Is the social networking cycle due to come around again or has Facebook’s size and war chest mean that it’ll be on top for the foreseeable future?

Tagged In

I’ve always resisted joining and using Facebook. The argument I got back from tech writers, friends, and family was that you had to join because that’s the service everyone was using. Now that it appears that’s actually true, the same tech writers say it’s why you should leave. “You must join or get left behind! Wait, leave because no one was left behind!”

I remember when FB was first released a few friends asked if I wanted to join up. I wasn’t really interested in socializing with HS classmates or family online, so I passed. Fast forward a few years, and I didn’t sign up out of stubborn principle – something that’s held true to this day.

I sometimes wonder how many people have lost out on job opportunities because they posted pictures of themselves wasted at a bar and the prospective employer did a quick search…

Michael Garrett

A lot less than you think. I’m sure most employers know you were going to have a good time in college and you aren’t being recruited for a C-level job. But just like you, there are a lot of bosses that don’t use Facebook so they wouldn’t even think of searching for you before your interview with them.

William Washburn

I have no doubt the 1B includes dropped accounts, as we know they don’t really delete you.
People may not see you but you will be in FBs db FOREVER!!!!
Who knows what the real # is?

I was under the impression that these were real, active users and that Fb had nuked the fake accounts (whether they were removed from the db is different story, of course).

VirtualMark

Facebook was interesting a few years back, however i feel that its just got too “in your face” these days. For example, i rooted my Android phone a while back and ditched Facebook – the phone was unstable and i no longer had half of my contacts on it. When i restored it, the phone worked as normal, but i found it annoying that Facebook is an essential part of the software.
Like the writer here says, it used to be cool but now everyones mum, nan, aunt etc are on it. Its no longer flirtbook, you have to watch what you say. I’ve also read about employers checking up on their staff, privacy issues, all sorts of problems that make me just want to leave. The only reason i’m still on it is because its a handy place to have a lot of contacts.

Will Mills

I am confused as to why people worry about bosses and potential employers seeing your Facebook page. Its called privacy settings people use them…. I stopped useing Facebook shortly after I married because… well I did not need to use it anymore :). But instead of deleting it and just letting me information sit on Facebooks DB I just overly restricted access to it. No one can even post to my wall or anything anymore. Problem solved.

People are worried because many employers now demand your Facebook password (according to recent magazine articles) before hiring. If you refuse, you don’t get hired. And if you do get hired, some employers check their employees’ FB pages for derogatory remarks about the company or leaks of company proprietary information. That’s why California just passed a law prohibiting employers from demanding access to your FB page.

You could tell a potential employer you don’t have a FB page (they’ll probably think you’re lying) or set up an “clean” alternate page for only employers to see, but a Google search might still turn up incriminating info on you.

Stuff you put on the net likely is forever. That’s why more people are increasingly paranoid about social media and sharing personal information.

Will Mills

And to that I say lie. You can make it so you do not come up in searches. None of my employers know I have face book, they have asked before I just say no. If they can’t see you there is no problem… That is why you do regular searches for yourself to make sure you do not appear it searches. Then you clean it up so you do not appear.

Emile Nijssen

I have never really understood what’s so special about FB. I don’t use it, but as far as I’ve heard it’s just a place to post messages and images. I’ve done that since I first set foot on the internet. Forums, mailing lists, instant messaging…

Why is FB of all services such a popular one? It offers no USP for me?

Michael Garrett

The new myspace actually looks pretty amazing. It won’t ever rival the size of Facebook but it may give Reverbnation a run for its money.

I’m very happy now that I have cancelled my account. Facebook shares too much I think. Privacy is nice and got tired of people asking why I haven’t got back to them. sick of always checking in to avoid those people. Tell them to use the phone and call me, stop the facebook crap.

With 1bn accounts one of two things will happen – it either becomes sustainable through turnover (with young/first time users joining every day driven by peer pressure and convenience) or it falls out of favour as a place where old folks socialise and the next generation moves onto the next big thing.
I’m leaning toward fb being generational in nature – who seriously considers today’s 13 year old as a facebook user at age 40? It just doesn’t ring true.

Obligatory integration with every website, app and OS under the sun is what will guarantee that FB will live to grow old, fat, lazy and corrupt.

James Rivers

I don’t have facebook. Never liked the fact that personal info is there. My main reason of not joining is when you upload content, you just gave the ownership of the picture or content to them. So if they decide to shut down (doubt that will happen but I hope so) they will still have all that content. Enough to make a collage the size of africa. All my peers have an account except me. If I want to see what they are doing, I just call them or meet them. Facebook is good for promotion, not for personal things. Wish they would stop forcing you to get an account. It’s bad enough I use google, Why get someone else to track my a$$?

Facebook has the details of some large majority of the American populace.

There is no need to expend the effort, resources, or manpower spying on new people that come to the attention of the government, when all they have to do is go to Facebook and find out most of the details of someone’s life.

After the government intelligence agencies, the police use it for the same reason, private investigators use it for the same reason, employers use it for the same reason, colleges use it for the same reason, creditors use it for the same reason, and even prospective dates use it for snooping into all of the details of the lives of others.

Just wanted to clear this up in your article: Diaspora is definitely not a failure. It’s an active community-driven open source project, meaning that volunteers are working on it around the clock. It’s a fairly thriving community that isn’t tied to a single website (rather, anyone with a Diaspora site can join the network of other people and communicate seamlessly).

I wouldn’t be sad to see facebook die a slow death. I’m definitely on board with potentially using another platform to connect with others.

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